- 著者
-
加藤 有子
- 出版者
- 現代文芸論研究室
- 雑誌
- れにくさ : 現代文芸論研究室論集
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.3, pp.226-242, 2012-03-30
This paper explores how Jonathan Safran Foer (b.1977) manipulates the visual and material elements of a book, focusing on the endings of his three books, Everything is Illuminated (2002), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2005) and Tree of Codes (2010). By analyzing each ending as a representation of trauma suffered by survivors of the Holocaust and September 11, and as an allusion to the process of conquering this trauma and thereby living on "after" the event, this paper shows how Foer, using the visual elements of his books, demonstrates that the seemingly objective "history" is also a narrative from someone's viewpoint, and has been inevitably modified by deletion or abbreviation when being narrated. His works expand on the concept of "liberature" -- a new literary genre integrating the text and form of a book, proposed by Polish critics Fajfer and Bazarnik -- by demonstrating that such works make visible the manipulation that normally occurs in the narratives / histories we read and narrate. Firstly, comparing the endings of Tree of Codes, a die-cut book based on The Street of Crocodiles of Bruno Schulz, and Everything is Illuminated, this paper points out the common theme between the two, which differs completely in style and form. Both works, by using visual and physical elements of a book, represent the difficulty faced by survivors of the Holocaust and World War II when narrating their personal experiences of these traumatic events as an "I" story / history. Both works reflect popular discussions on memories of the Holocaust in the years 1980-1990, when Foer should have been receiving higher education. Further, this paper analyzes the ending of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which ends with 15 continuous pictures, but in reverse, of a man falling from the World Trade Center on 09.11.2001. Compared with the poem by Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012), "Photograph of September 11" (2002), the ending turns out to symbolize the expectation that the narrator-protagonist will start to re-narrate the event from his personal viewpoint with his own words. The ending is not a visualization of repression of a traumatic event, but liberation from the collective and representative narratives on the event. This paper finally reminds the reader of a similar "manipulation" in a press release announced on the official home page of the Yad Vashem about the removal of the fragments of wall paintings of Bruno Schulz that were discovered in 2001 by the German film maker Geissler in Drohobycz (now in Ukraine), the hometown of Schulz.